Musings from California

Hell hath no fury like trying to choose paint

There’s a tiny room in the front of our house that has been the home to my mom’s former aesthetician business. She’s in her 70s and doesn’t work anymore, but the business holds a powerful meaning for her. I get that. I used to own a business, too. It’s tough letting go. However, after much emotional struggle she decided to finally sell her business once and for all.

This means that in two weeks that room will be empty and it will return to the warm and embracing fold of the house. This also means that we can repaint it. (Yay!) And replace the carpet, which is this really OLD crazy dingy commercial grade blue stuff. And since we’re going to repaint that room we can also take advantage of the opportunity and go ahead and repaint our office and kitchen, two projects we have been talking about for ages.

Jack’s standing in our office (checking out paint swatches painted all over the walls (you can see more swatches on the wall over the computer monitor behind him) and there’s our kitchen through the doorway.

First up: the little front room. We’re going to convert that room into a guest bedroom. Here are the colors that we’re perusing. I think we’re going to go with the light blue (right) and gray blue (above the yellow) along with white for all the wainscoting, trim, etc.

Second: That kind of mustard yellow in the middle, actually called “Desert Mesa” will be the new color in the office, along with white trim/molding,etc. Whoo. Easy! We slapped some swatches on the wall, threw a dart and we’re done.

This was the easiest of our paint selections.

Next, let’s move on on to paint chip hell.

Here’s the kitchen.

We haven’t done much to it since we moved in except put in this simple ceiling light and a small matching wall sconce. The old ceiling light was one of those big square fluorescent boxes. You can still see the square stain on the ceiling from the former fixture. These are the only two lights in the kitchen besides the stove light, which means there’s not much. This kitchen has terrible lighting.

It’s my dream to some day have can lights and under cabinet pocket lights so that I can actually see what I’m chopping at night.

Anyway, here’s what my little sink area looks like …

… and here are all our paint swatches.

I’ve gone back to the store three times, each time choosing 3 new colors. The paint dude at Home Depot thinks I’m nuts: “Aren’t all these colors the same?”

Hmmm.

Any thoughts?

Top row, left to right, #1 through 6.
Bottom row, left to right, #7 through 9.

I agree with with Kim Fasching. The greys seem dark with the cherry woods. She gave good advice on mixing some pink and white. And, if you really like grey, try moving over to taupe which adds a little brown to the grey and will soften and warm the color.

My kitchen is narrow, runs the length of the house E to W, and is in the middle of the house. My cupboards are stained close to yours. Early American/teak would be the closest with a slightly darker oak 1/3 up the wall oak trim in the eating area… Dark. I painted it yellow. Bright, lemon, yellow. When we first walked in we went OMG… 13yrs later, it needs to be done over and I wouldn’t change the colour.

Also, for under your cupboards I’m now on my second strand of christmas tube lights. The one’s the come in those long tubes with the little clips. PIT… A… to attach under the cupboards but they give a lot of light under the cupboard and are a cheap fix. Just plug them in when you need more light.

With a Kitchen you need to determine if you want the paint color to stand out or blend in – what is the focus in the kitchen – paint color, flooring or cabinets, countertops??? #2 looks like a good color.